• Montmartre

    Square Leon Serpollet & 700 Jewish Children

    A huge, cool, leafy emerald, in the middle of the 18th arrondissement, Square Leon Serpollet is a park situated directly behind Rue Ordener on Rues des Cloys. Named after the inventor of the steam-car, Léon Serpollet, the park sits upon the…

  • Paris

    Le Shopping

    It’s impossible to live in Paris without doing le shopping at some point. My neighbourhood in Montmartre has a supermarket on every corner, so it seems only right that I should acquaint myself with a few. I don’t mind admitting…

  • Monmartre

    153 Rue Ordener, Montmartre

    It’s almost the end of my first week on Rue Ordener. So far we’ve had a day with no running water, a wedding and a visit from two fire engines. I’d call that a roaring success for week 1 in…

  • Paris, at last. My new front door.
    Paris

    Paris, at last

    The week before leaving for Paris I worked in London, Oxford and Birmingham. Sunday night I was back in London ready for le early 07.55 Eurostar and Paris, at last. A wave of panic I think that I was so…

  • Villeneuve-d'Ascq. It was the summer of 'Joe le taxi' & my first trip to France with a school exchange to Villeneuve-d'Ascq, northern France's equivalent to Milton Keynes.
    France

    Villeneuve-d’Ascq

    My first real taste of France was a school French exchange trip. I found myself paired with Dorothé, a fearless, Amazonian girl of the same age from Villeneuve-d’Ascq, a new town in northern France. Infinitely more sophisticated than me, Dorothé…

  • With the memory span of a goldfish and an aversion to school French, I'm learning to parlez Francais all over again.
    French

    Learning French (again)

    Here I am learning French (again). I’ll start by saying that even though I possess a GCSE in French I have the memory span of a goldfish. I remember very little of the French I learned in school other than…

  • Henry Miller & Juicy Couture in Clichy. How sometimes there's no such thing as a free trip to Paris.
    Paris

    Henry Miller & Juicy Couture in Clichy

    Part of my Montmartre preparation involves reading anything and everything vaguely related to Paris. This week has somehow managed to throw Henry Miller & Juicy Couture in Clichy into the mix. Paris & a Hair Cut The book I finished…

  • Rue Ordener. The view from Le nord sud
    Monmartre

    Rue Ordener

    With it’s cobbled streets Monmartre conjures images of the Moulin Rouge, Pigalle, sex shops, windmills, theatres, the Sacre Coeur, artists, writers and bohemia. Rue Ordener is none of these things. Instead, you’ll find an unassuming, quiet little street tucked away…